Comments on: 4 Toys That Have Gone to War for America

By: kilroyjc

kilroyjc — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:34:34 +0000

Interestingly, the Slinky itself is derived from military technology, as part of the suspension system for gyrocompasses on larger-class naval vessels to protect the gyrocompass from the shock and stresses of firing the big guns.

By: JFairweather

JFairweather — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:37:39 +0000

Curious as to the source of the cricket myth. The crickets were used for the D-Day invasion so there was little time for Germans to do use captured crickets to snare the invaders.
There are, however, verified accounts that some of the invaders showed themselves when they mistook the four-click sound of a German chambering a rifle cartridge for the four-click sound of the cricket signal.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:20:58 +0000

The slinky story needs a bit of amplification. Radio waves are calculated in meters. To send and receive signals on, for example, the 20 meter band, you need two legs (horizontal) of wire that long. A slinky reduced the length of the wire for obvious reasons and were thus easier to put up. One wire if vertical, but that was less directional.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:36:00 +0000

Nice! I don’t have this issue, so yay for the reprint!

By: The Milkboy

The Milkboy — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:49:00 +0000

Monopoly was actually used for those purposes by the British

By: Corey

Corey — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:50:00 +0000

You forgot Monopoly, they used to include this in red cross care packages for POWs and they included a hidden map.